“I’m sorry,” Lord Aston gasped as he came stumbling over, completely unharmed. “I–I meant to hit his arm. I swear it. I–”
“Go,” Sterling snarled, as savage as any feral creature that had ever lived. “Get out of my sight before I beat you to death with my bare hands, you bastard. Go!” Then he bent over Sebastian, whose eyes were already beginning to glaze over. Eyes that were blue, like their mother’s had been.
Trembling, shaking, he cradled his brother’s head on his lap, stroking his hair, lightly tapping his pale cheek. “It’s all right,” he said hoarsely. “It’s all right. The doctor is on his way, and he’ll fix you right up. Do you hear me? Right up. You’ll be on your feet and pestering me about honoring the family name in no time at all.”
“Sterling,” Sebastian rasped. “Is that you?”
“Yes.” Hope flared, bright and brilliant and blinding. “Yes, it’s me.”
“I…” Blood gurgled in Sebastian’s throat, then spilled out the side of his mouth in a trickle of crimson. “I…”
“Don’t speak,” Sterling ordered. “You need your strength for when the doctor arrives. He’ll be here any minute.” He looked helplessly at Fieldstone, who stood off to the side, his face as white as the clouds passing lazily overhead. “Where is the damned doctor?”
Fieldstone hesitated, then gave a slight shake of his head. “I don’t know. Sterling…Sterling, even if he gets here–”
“Don’t say it. By God, don’t you say it!”
His brother, dead?
It was unfathomable.
Sebastian was…Sebastian was invincible.
Except he didn’t feel invincible in Sterling’s arms. He felt cold, and stiff, andheavy.
Like a corpse.
More blood spurted onto the ground.
It was everywhere.
Who knew a body had so much?
Still, he clung to his brother with the desperate determination of a sailor hanging on to a sinking ship. Waiting for a miracle that was never going to come. Waiting for help that was never going to arrive. Because somewhere in the tortured fragments of his grief, Sterling knew that Fieldstone was right. Even if a doctor did come, it would be too late. His brother was dying. There was nothing anyone could do. Nothinghecould do but hold on. So that when Sebastian did pass from this world into the next, he wasn’t alone.
Sterling didn’t want him to be alone.
“I’m sorry,” he said raggedly. “I’m so damned sorry, Bastian. For so many things.”
Sebastian made a wet, choking sound. “Look–look after S-Sarah.”
“I will. I swear it. She’ll want for nothing.”
“And H-Hanover Park. You are the duke now, S-Sterling.” The ghost of a smile touched Sebastian’s bloodstained lips. “Whatever you do, d-don’t gamble her away.”
“I won’t. I–Bastian?Sebastian!” he cried when his brother’s eyes closed and his breathing quickened.
A last, shuddering gasp…then he was gone.
And Sterling was the one left alone.
Chapter One
Six years later
Hawkridge Manor
It was atruth universally acknowledged that a single woman in possession of a pet squirrel was not soon to be in possession of a husband.
